Two more stories from a voice thought lost

Whenever an author passes away, I'm reminded of the Library of Dream, from Sandman. There, all the world's books that were never written, except in dreams, live. This hit me especially hard with the death of Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series. In that moment, all the possible adventures of the mice of Redwall were subtly shifted to Dream's library. The same may happen all too soon, to another grandmaster of fantasy, Terry Pratchett.

Ever so often, though, readers are granted a reprieve and a tale or two appear. In Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler, we get two stories that have never been printed anywhere before. 

'A Necessary Being' is in the point of view of the leaders of two tribes. Tahneh, the Rohkohn Hao, is the daughter of the previous leader. Before him their tribe didn't have a Hao, a born leader with a pure-blue coloring. He was kidnapped from another tribe and crippled to ensure he couldn't flee. He was able to rise above the bitterness and hatred of those who had damaged him so and become a good leader for his new Tribe, but watching him and his broken legs showed Tahneh the true cruelty of that tradition.

Tahneh has failed to give birth to a successor Hao, and now it's become her burden to order the capture of a foreign Hao to take over after her. Will she lose heart and betray her own tribe, or will she be able to do to the Tehkohn Hao what was done to her own father?

'Childfinder' takes place in a possible future of our own civilization. Psionic ability has appeared in humanity, and the optimists marveled at the possibilities of uniting the world.

Barbara is living the reality of this new world. Hiding in a suburb-turned-slumlord-housing, she is trying to pass on the control of the psionic ability to children who would never have the opportunity for training otherwise. Very few people can see the potential for psionics in children, and it withers from disuse so quickly that most never learn to use it. Children that the organization hadn't already gotten a hold of and tainted. Children like her.

The organization that she escaped from has no one else with this talent. Eve is sent to retrieve her, to find more children for their own use. But Barbara has other plans.

These stories are from earlier in Butler's writing career, and it shows. These two stories show the potential that Butler has as an author, along with the rough edges that any new author has. Her ideas are as huge as in her later novels, but seem incomplete somehow. There are just a few more unanswered questions than she might have left later on, but they are still light-years ahead of the average short story. 

Unexpected Stories gives Butler's fans one last glimpse into tales rescued from Dream's library.

Highs: The footnote at the end of 'Childfinder' is one of the most chilling bits of writing I've read in a long time.

Lows: The slow discovery of the caste system in 'A Necessary Being' might be frustrating to readers unaccustomed to the style.

Verdict: These two tales raise hopes that more spectacular stories might be hiding somewhere in Butler's papers, just waiting to be revealed.

Further Reading: Kindred, Dawn, Kabu Kabu, The Speed of Dark

A blend of the modern and the traditional

The lines between the modern, the traditional and the magical blur in Nnedi Okorafor's short story collection Kabu Kabu.

In the titular story, all Ngozi wants is to get to the airport. Her sister, while born in America like her, is getting married in Nigeria, and she needs to support her through the unfamiliar ceremonies. But after a late start, she only has half an hour to make it to O'Hare. Maybe that's why she takes the kabu-kabu that stops for her. A Chicago cop, she knows better than to get into an unregistered cab., but the ride that she takes goes much farther than a simple pickpocketing.

'The Ghastly Bird' is a homage to one of humanity's atrocities against the natural world. A renowned ornithologist, Zev chooses to make Mauritius his base of operations. Once home to the flightless, trusting dodo, Zev is convinced that the bird was too smart to go extinct so easily. Rather, the dodo must be hiding somewhere on the island, biding its time until ti is safe to reappear. He creates a wonderful sanctuary around his home, including fruit trees that are favorites of the island's indigenous birds. And one morning, he hears that distinctive call.

'The Carpet' is the nearest that this collection comes to a haunted house story. Sisters Zuma and Mukoso have traveled to their father's home village in Nigeria to visit their family, as well as to check out the house that their parents had built their for themselves. After a strange run-in at the market, the sisters arrive at the house to find it completely empty. Not only have all the furnishings for the house disappeared, there is no plumbing or wiring either. It has all been taken by the people of the village, their own family members. Rather than stay in the home of these people, the sisters choose to stay in the empty house by themselves. But the nights are awfully dark out in the village, and the sounds outside their bedroom door aren't what they're used to.

Okorafor is a master of the short form. In just a few pages, she can transport the reader a thousand miles away, seamlessly blending reality and fantasy in a way that leaves the reader almost questioning where the line between real and unreal lies.

The only flaw with the collection, and it's a big one, is in the first story. 'The Magical Negro' is a response to the stereotypical "exotic shaman survives just long enough to give the hero that vital piece of information before he's killed off" trope that appears all too often in poorly written fiction. While it's well-written, not only is it not representative of the rest of the collection, out-of-context it's quite hostile to the reader. If I had flipped through the book at a store and stopped to read the first story, I'd have put it back on the shelf and missed out on the rest of this wonderful book. Instead, I might have put this as a closing story for the collection.

Beyond that, though, Kabu Kabu is magical realism at its finest, showing the world a mythology sorely overlooked by most authors.

Highs: The imagery of teaching a security and repair android to appreciate music is absolutely beautiful

Lows: It was hard at times to tell if the stories had interconnected storylines, or if they were each different takes on the same folk story

Verdict: A hauntingly beautiful collection of stories

Further Reading: Moscow but Dreaming, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, The Midnight Palace

Now, the vampires get their chance at apocalypse

Zombie apocalypse books have been all the rage of late. The Walking Dead, World War Z, Under a Graveyard Sky and a whole host of other novels have shown us what to do when the undead hoardes appear: kill it with fire. But what are we to do when the hoardes aren't undead? What do we do when the newest predator is just as smart, and just as alive, as us?

V Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry, gives us just that situation. While working far, far North, two separate groups of people are exposed to the I1V1 virus from the melting polar caps. And thanks to globalization, and the wonderful virus breeding grounds that are airplanes, the virus quickly spreads around the world.

Ostensibly America's Patient Zero, Michael Fayne just got back from a wonderfully icy movie shoot in the wonderfully icy locale of Point Barrow, Alaska. Only a stone's throw from the North Pole, Fayne isn't surprised in the least when he gets sick upon arrival back to New York City. But the bills won't pay themselves, and neither will the paycheck from his SyFy Original Movie, so he hauls himself in to his part-time barista job. A series of blackouts culminates in a date gone terribly wrong, and he finds himself in NYPD's 6th Precinct, being interviewed by a very strange man.

Mooney Lopez knew that monsters roam on two legs long before the V-Event. An orphan on an Indian reservation in the American Southwest, no family came forward to take her in, so she lives with a foster mother she calls Mother Gaso. Raped at 17, Mother Gaso sends her on a trip to NYC to get away and find herself, but she comes back with more than she bargained for.

Ruksana Vulpes of Bucharest was one of the scientists studying glaciers in the Antarctic. With a lifelong love of mountain climbing, she and her partners have no problem rappelling down a glacier that has just calved, getting samples of ice that hasn't seen the light of day in millennia. As she and another member of her team are sampling, a moment of carelessness leads to an eruption of thawed sediment landing on the both of them.

Hugues 'Big Charlie' Charles is the District Attorney of the Bronx. Credited with dramatically decreasing the crime rate in his part of the city, he seems like a shoe-in for the upcoming Primaries. But it's not in Big Charlie's personality to hide anything from his constituents: in the run-up to voting day, he announces that he's been infected with the I1V1 virus.

These are just a few of the stories in V Wars. With the overarching world of a virus activating the 'junk' DNA in its victims, and each region of the world having its own vampire lore, the authors have a wealth of tales to pull from. From Chinese hopping vampires, to Native American rattlesnake-based vampires, to Eastern European vampire-hunting beings, the huge variety of creatures available to pull from makes this anthology truly fascinating.

Highs: The moral quandary of what to do with literally thousands of human beings who may or may not be able to control their need for the flesh, blood or life force of other humans is a moral and legal nightmare that I never want to be a part of

Lows: While the main storyline, written by Maberry himself, is date-stamped, it's hard to figure out exactly when some of the other stories take place

Verdict: A refreshing change of pace from the traditional ZA story

Further Reading: World War Z, Under a Graveyard Sky, Feed

Manga Monday: A collection of miscellany

Kaoru Mori rose to international fame as a manga artist with her first title Emma: A Victorian Romance. Since then, Mori has moved on from England to the Silk Road with A Bride's Story, but has kept the amazing attention to detail and wonderful characters that has brought her so much success.

As a writer works, though, there will always be bits and bobs that never end up collected anywhere. Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something gathers these side stories, introductions and one-panel pictures, interspersed with the author's signature self-depreciating wit.

The first half of the collection consists of eight short stories that Mori has done for various publications. From a bunny girl at a gentleman's club to a middle-schooler getting her first pair of eyeglasses, to a wife finding a swimsuit bought years ago. The best part of these stories is that it shows the range Mori has. With her continuing series, she's exclusively written period pieces, set in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These are mainly modern-day stories, and show that Mori shouldn't be pigeonholed.

In the middle there is a charming 'Middleword' manga explaining the short stories and where they were first published. It's always interesting to see an author reflect on her stories, and the context for these is appreciated.

The second half of the book is a group of her shorter works. Interspersed between full page illustrations are small works she's done over the years. Here, we see everything from the signing pages that are handed out at large book signings to a manga of her reaction to watching the anime based on Emma: A Victorian Romance. Most of these pieces have some sort of annotation on the page, either giving the reader some idea of where they first appeared, or some note on her views of the piece. Perhaps some of her most detailed work can be found in the last three pieces, which are five-page studies on corsets, fireplaces and the servants of the Agatha Christie stories. Obviously labors of love, an amazing amount of information is squeezed into these pages.

Fans of either of Mori's series will love the never-before-collected illustrations of their favorite characters included here. This has farther appeal, however, as a look into all of the promotional material that a manga artist produces over the years. In the afterward, she mentions that as she's been writing for ten years, this book is something of a milestone for her. Here's hoping that she does get that chance to keep writing, and I for one will be along for the ride.

Highs: This book showcases the variety and detail of Mori's art, even when she's simply making advertising materials for a bookstore.

Lows: As an American reader, rather than Japanese, I would have appreciated an explanation that "Fellows" and "Beam" were magazines in which her stories were published.

Verdict: Not only for fans of her series, this is also recommended for fans of manga as a genre, for its look into the other materials that an artist produces.

Further Reading: A Drifting Life, Okimono Kimono

In Russia, it's hard to tell whether the darkness comes from reality or the old tales

It takes a certain mind to see the stories behind the items and people one passes every day. The seas of the moon. The pattern of the holes in an electric iron. A sock puppet in a counselor's bag. Each of these items and more, when brushed by a touch of magical realism and the mind of Ekaterina Sedia, becomes a tale in her first short story collection Moscow but Dreaming.

Some of the people in this collection are memorable enough to stay with the reader long after the covers are closed. The old man in 'Tin Cans,' confronting the nightmares of his youth every evening in his position as a night watchman. The orphan girl in 'There is a Monster Under Helen's Bed,' rescued from the human monsters of her orphanage in Russia, but unable to escape demons of a different sort. The man in 'Seas of the World,' born of the Caspian and not realizing how dangerous transformation magic can be until it's too late.

Even the objects in the stories burn their place in the reader's memory. The shape of the burns that the racketeers of 'By the Liter' leave on their victims, so like a Kabbalic symbol, that allow the spirit of the newly deceased to wander. The legendary bodies of water in 'A Short Encyclopedia of Lunar Seas' and the societies that inhabit each, so like their names. An elusive, mysterious building in 'The Bank of Burkina Faso,' which is so eager to accept your money, but so reluctant to return it. Even the sock puppet in 'A Play for a Boy and Sock Puppets' has more heart and more drive than one would expect from a toy with buttons for eyes.

Beyond the Eastern European setting that these stories share, there's also a thread of magical realism that loosely ties these works together. In the vein if Isabel Allende and Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Sedia blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Nearly every story in this collection has some form of the supernatural appear at some point, often where the reader least expects it.

Even as these tale engage the reader and draw him in to these magical realms, a few of the stories broke the spell. As wonderful as the imagery and narrative can be, those without a good knowledge of Russian history will be sent scrambling to Google to help make sense of the backdrop. 'Tin Can' in particular sent this reader on an hour-long Wikipedia session, learning about Lavientiy Beria and the secret police of the USSR. Those who didn't live through the Cold War years may be a bit lost at times, but never enough to lessen the enjoyment of the stories at face value.

This isn't a collection to be read in marathon sessions. Doing so would lessen the uniqueness of each story. These should be savored for their individuality, not seen as simply the next story in a book. Each story of Moscow but Dreaming deserves to be examined and contemplated on its own. To do less would be a disservice to the author and the amazing worlds she creates.

Highs: In each story, the reader feels the darkness behind the great fairy tales peeking around the edges, waiting patiently for its chance to come out.

Lows: Because each story is so rich, the volume as a whole seems rather daunting.

Verdict: A perfect book for the reader who rarely has time to sit down for long, as each story will rattle around in back of his mind for days.

Further Reading: The Midnight Palace, Clockwork Chickadee

Christmas plus Steampunk plus Romance equals fireside reading

Romance novels touch on every genre of fiction.  They've nearly claimed vampires and werewolves for themselves, and there are historical romances set in every era from Ancient Rome to World War II Britain.  But generally, the genre-based romance novel is just a normal romance with a fancy dialect and a few more paes describing how everyone dresses thrown in.  They aren't truly a book of that genre.  A true Civil War buff will be sorely disappointed Philippa Gregory's A Respectible Trade, for example.

But that's the beauty of A Clockwork Christmas.  Steampunk isn't a genre of its own, exactly.  It's more of a window-dressing for another genre, such as a period historical story, or a zombie apocalypse, or a vampire and werewolf situation.  Steampunk is a setting, and the authors here write their stories with that in mind.


In 'Crime Scene in a Corset', Cornelia Peabody has made a terrible mistake.  A former street urchin turned sneaktheif and inventor, she's stolen a Faberge egg from a University professor.  He makes his way into her hidden office, and incapacitates her.  While she is out, he affixes a magnificent little piece of technology to her wrist, and explains her new situation: steal back the egg, or on Christmas Morning the device will go off and electrocute her.  Will she manage to get it back, or would stealing it away again be an even worse crime?  And why does this Roderick fellow keep appearing in her chambers?


Rather than finding new love, 'This Winter Heart' is about finding a love that they both thought was gone forever.  Ophelia couldn't help that she was a construct; her father, in mourning for his lost wife, used both his and her DNA to grow a flesh-and-blood daughter around a steel frame with artificial lungs and heart.  And when she met Leonides, the golden boy heir of the South, they fell in love and quickly married.  But family is important to Southerners, and when he discovered the truth about her, as well as the fact that she likely couldn't have children, he casts her out, back to her father's house.  Now, 8 years later, and with an 8 year old boy in tow, she's on her way back to her husband's home.  Her father has died, and she's hoping that seeing the son that Dario never expected to have will soften his heart towards her.  But will Southern pride get in their way?


Esme, in Jenny Schwartz's 'Wanted: One Scoundrel,' however, is campaigning to show Australia that women don't need men to support them.  A suffragette during Australia's beginnings, she was raised by a prospector on the continent's frontier and wants to establish the vote for women from the start.  There's only one problem: the men in the area are moving their political meetings to a gentlemen's club, where she cannot participate.  So she told her uncle to be on the lookout for a scoundrel on his next ship over.  One who would have no problem being the mouthpiece of a rather...opinionated, well-to-do lady and being paid handsomely for his trouble.  She thinks she's found him in Jedediah Reeve, a man cunning enough to be the ship's card sharp, but charismatic enough that no one had any hard feelings about losing their money to him.  The Outback is filled with men with the morals to have been transported, though and many a man wuld do drastic things to get at Esme's inheritance.  Will Jed probe to be more than a scoundrel after all?


Jasper Carlisle in 'Far From Broken' is hardly a scoundrel himself.  While on a mission for the military, his wife Calliandra, a former prima ballerina, is tortured nearly to death by some men after Jasper himself.  The War Council is just starting to work on mechanical replacements for the body parts of soldiers, and Jasper made a horrible deal with one of the commanders of the Council in order to save his wife's life.  But no one asked Callie if she wanted to be saved.  With both legs, a hand, and an eye replaced, she's lost the grace and looks that have come to define her.  Will Jasper and Callie be able to rebuild their life together, and what happened to the torturer Jasper hasn't managed to track down yet?


I've never been one to read many romance novels, and I admit I was pleasantly surprised by these.  For the most part, I was quickly engaged by all the plots, and the characters were well thought out and stayed consistent in their actions.  I've never liked damsel in distress stories, but even Ophelia in 'This Winter Heart' developed a backbone when the chips were down.  'Wanted: One Scoundrel' perhaps took the longest to capture my attention, but only because most Americans need so much narrative about Australia's founding and environment at the time.  


I loved Cornelia in 'Crime Wave in a Corset' from nearly the first page, and the longer the story went, the more I liked her.  'Far From Broken' had me rooting for both Jasper and Callie.  


A Clockwork Christmas is a perfect balance of love, lust, revenge and intrigue custom-made for reading next to the fireplace.  Perhaps the best praise I can give the authors is that I would read a series based on any of these stories.  With the Christmas theme, this makes a perfect stocking-stuffer for the Steampunk romantic in your life.


Highs:  Watching Cornelia in 'Crime Scene in a Corset' learn to get past her upbringing and be able to show her heart


Lows:  Some of the stories have a bit too much setup and can be hard to get into.


Verdict:  As the stories are a bit longer than in some collections, be sure to block out enough time in the evening to savor each story curled up with a cup of tea.


Further Reading:  Soulless, Ganymede

Bite-Sized Bits of Urban Fantasy

While this is the 12th book in the Newford world, it is certainly accessible to first time readers of Charles de Lint's work.  While there are no real spoilers that I could tell, there may be some that I missed, so be warned.  Otherwise, read on.